A Thousand Splendid Suns

This past weekend in Grand Haven I read Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (thanks for the birthday present, Alice!). From Hosseini's web site:

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years-from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding-that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives-the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness-are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

It's a good book. Evidence suggests that people wonder if it's as good as The Kite Runner. I'd say yes. Better in fact. It's good that so many westerners are reading these stories about Afghanistan (with the films on the way). It's heartbreaking what the Afghani people have suffered, what history and culture has been lost, and it isn't over. The Taliban, those barbaric murderers, are resurgent.